Should I use a CDN or a server in Asia for Asian visitors?

What does a CDN do for visitors in Asia?

It keeps copies of your files in data centres near your visitors. A visitor in Manila then loads your images from a nearby city, not from your server. Cloudflare says its network spans 348 cities. It also says 95% of the world's Internet-connected population is within 50 ms of one of its data centres.

The CDN also ends each visitor's connection close to them. The TCP handshake (RFC 9293) and the TLS handshake (RFC 8446) happen with the nearby edge, not with your origin. That alone saves round trips on every new visit.

What does a CDN not cache by default?

Your pages and your API answers. Cloudflare's documentation, updated on 14 September 2026, says its CDN does not cache HTML or JSON by default. It caches by file extension: images, CSS, JavaScript, fonts, video, archives and documents.

So a dynamic page goes back to your origin every time. That includes logged-in dashboards, carts and checkouts, search results, and API calls from a mobile app. Rules can cache more, but anything personal to a visitor cannot be shared from a cache.

A CDN moves your files to Asia. It does not move your application.

How much does the origin's location cost per request?

One long round trip for each uncached request, often more. The edge near the visitor forwards the request to your origin and waits for the answer. The table shows Microsoft's median round trips from possible origin regions to three Asian audiences.

When is a CDN alone enough?

When almost everything can be cached. A CDN in front of an origin anywhere works well for:

• static sites and documentation;
• image-heavy pages that change rarely;
• software downloads and video on demand.

It is not enough when most requests are personal or live. Shops, dashboards, APIs, chat and search need the origin close to users. Game servers need the server itself near players; see where to host a game server for players in Asia.

Can I use a CDN and a server in Asia together?

Yes, and that is the usual answer for a busy Asian audience. The CDN serves cached files from the edge. The server in Asia answers everything else over a short path.

A CDN also cuts the traffic your server sends, because cached files leave from the edge. That matters for a server with a monthly allowance. Every server has a 1 Gbit/s port with a monthly traffic allowance (Strait 16 20 TB, Strait 32 20 TB, Strait 32F 30 TB), one dedicated IPv4 address and an IPv6 /64; going past the allowance never triggers an automatic bill. No China-optimised route (CN2) is sold.

Choose the origin city by audience. Singapore suits Southeast Asia and India; Tokyo suits Japan and Korea; Hong Kong sits between them. The map is on the best server location for users across Asia.

My origin is in Europe. Should I move it to Asia?

If Asian visitors use dynamic pages, yes. Microsoft's median from Frankfurt is 166 ms to Singapore and 235 ms to Tokyo. Every uncached request pays it. The full Europe picture is on the ping from Europe to servers in Asia.

If most visitors are in Europe, keep the origin there and let the CDN serve Asia's static files. Splitting into two origins means keeping data in sync across that same long path.

Where can I rent an origin server in Asia?

Many hosts sell there, but fewer take crypto. Of 950 bare-metal plans sold in Asia that Copperstrait read on 2 November 2026, 58% were at hosts that take no crypto or did not confirm it. The hosts and cities are compared on which hosts rent dedicated servers in Hong Kong, Singapore and Tokyo.

Copperstrait rents whole machines in all three cities at one price. Strait 16 costs $143.25/30 days: AMD EPYC 7302P (16 cores / 32 threads), 64 GB DDR4 ECC, 2 × 1.92 TB NVMe in RAID 1, 1 Gbit/s port with 20 TB of traffic per 30 days, 1 IPv4 and an IPv6 /64. Terms are on how much a Copperstrait server costs.